(This Stripped column originally
appeared in the November 6-12, 1997 Long
Island Voice.Click
on the artwork for a larger image.)

by Beth Hannan Rimmels

'NUFF SAID:

"Kinda late for church, ain't it?" Cab driver

"It's never too late, brother."

 Mary in Shotgun Mary: Blood Lore
#1, a Warrior Nun Areala spin-off

Don't assume Warrior Nun Areala is a joke or a piece of
quick exploitation. You know the old saying about assuming things. Assumptions about a
comic-book celebration of swashbuckling Catholic nuns has caused Warrior Nun Areala
quite a bit of
trouble lately.

Created by Ben Dunn and published by Antarctic Press, Warrior
Nun Areala debuted in 1994 as a miniseries. It began with the founding of the order,
with a young nun trying to escape pillaging Vikings. She was saved when a Valkyrie, who
had converted to Christianity, gave a piece of herself to the young nun as well as a holy
sword. The nun, named Areala, realized that sometimes serving the Lord requires fighting
evil by hand. The story then skips to today's sisters in Areala's order.

The new, monthly series

In this version of Earth, demons regularly use our world as their
battleground against Heaven. To counter that, the Vatican has also created an order of
"magic priests" in addition to the normal clergy. That's cool enough by itself,
but one of the things that has distinguished the book is how the idea is used to comment
on real-life church issues.

For instance, complaints about the magic priests having more
money  even though the warrior nuns, not the magic priests, are on
the front lines against demons  ring true after seeing the stories
last year about people "adopting" elderly nuns to help a convent stay afloat or
articles about burial costs for nuns being subsidized by the state. I have never heard a
similar story about priests.

Sister Shannon evoking
the God Armor

Warrior Nun Areala takes literally the idea of women devoting their lives
to fight evil for God. But rather than being praised by conservative groups, Warrior Nun Areala
is
tagged as controversial due to stories in USA Today and other papers that labeled
it a "bad girl" book.

Monthly series writer Barry Lyga counters, "Issue #2 had not
a single punch thrown. When was the last time anyone saw a so-called 'bad girl' comic
without a fight scene?"

But people who haven't actually read the book hear about a nun
with a sword in an old-time habit  except for the two slits in the
long skirt and over-the-knee boots  and assume it's exploitation.
Well, how else can a sister fight in a long skirt? The boots are to cover her legs
 though I would have added leggings under the habit as well as boots.

The other problem is that some of the early work had the nuns
showing some cleavage. Ben, what were you thinking? I can buy your "I like
large-breasted women so I draw large-breasted women" argument, but cleavage on nuns?

A future-set miniseries

The monthly Warrior Nun Areala series, written by Lyga and drawn by Brian
Denham, has better sense than the prior miniseries and is off to a great start with
"The Holocaust and the Hammer," a three-issue storyline inspired by recent
historical revelations. Finding out about the church's questionable dealings with the
Nazis sparks a crisis of conscience in Sister Shannon even while she must protect the
church from a man seeking revenge.

That's what makes Warrior Nun Areala so special. At its core, it portrays
people who have unshakable faith in God and their religion. How they reconcile that faith
with doubts about the organized church is very relevant. Its affection for nuns is also
evident  and sometimes returned. One real nun asked about
Warrior Nun Areala
noted that she and her colleagues give poor children college prep-level educations 
that they are superheroes. Amen, sister.